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Cheonan World Dance Festival

Cheonan hosts this dance festival every year, which includes a week’s worth of street parades and dance performances. The international folk dance competition takes place at Three-Way Intersection Park on the last day of the festival.

I work at a hagwon and my work hours are strange, so I missed the events during the work week. But I spent my whole Sunday (Sept. 17th) at the park.

Following the flags…

The clouds finally came out!

Three-Way Intersection Park is HUGE. Tons of people were there, yet the festival never felt overly crowded. I spent the whole day walking around with a friend of mine and we both kept stumbling upon new things to see.

Traditional Korean theatre

A serene moment by the lake

The modern and traditional performances bumped elbows at this park. A man dressed as a beggar (a traditional show in Korea) was using audience participation to make everyone laugh. Just a short walk away, a hip hop group was urging a huge crowd of people to JUMP JUMP JUMP.

Eventually, after hours of exploring, we made our way back to the main stage. There was a Korean high school dance competition during the day, followed by the international dance competition later in the evening. Every group was spectacular in their own right.

Peru!

Israel!

Malaysia!

The awards ceremony was incredible, too. Brazil and Russia both won the grand prize. Russia essentially smiled, bowed politely…and left almost immediately. Brazil started cheering, singing, and jumping around…and were the last group to leave the stage.

Classic.

For the awards ceremony, each country was allowed to have ten dancers up on stage

Brazil!

A dancer from Russia!

After the fireworks show, anyone was allowed to come up and walk around on the stage, talk to the dancers, etc.